1953 Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck
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The 1953 Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck occurred on January 15, 1953, when a passenger and mail train from Boston to Washington DC (the ''
Federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
'') failed to brake sufficiently on its approach to
Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
, Washington, jumping the platform and plunging through the floor of the concourse. There were no deaths, but 43 people were injured. The cause of the accident was a design flaw that allowed a brake-valve to close without human intervention.


Description of the accident

The ''Federal'' (No. 173), was a southbound,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
-to-Washington, D.C., overnight train carrying mail and passengers. When the train arrived in
New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
, a New Haven electric locomotive replaced the diesel along with adding several passenger cars from Springfield for the run to New York's Penn Station where
PRR GG1 The Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 is a class of streamliner, streamlined electric locomotives built for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), in the northeastern United States. The class was known for its striking Art Deco, art deco shell, its ability to p ...
No. 4876, an
electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...
, was coupled on; the train had 16
coaches Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...
and Pullman sleeping cars. The ''Federal'' departed Boston at 11:00 P.M. After making two stops, the train halted at Kingston, Rhode Island, about south of Boston. Its brakes were sticking, and a 45-minute inspection occurred. Conductors discovered a closed "angle cock" (an air shutoff valve) at the rear of the third car. The airbrake system aboard the rail cars had angle cocks at each end of each car. Both valves had to be open for the airbraking system to operate properly. The only closed angle cocks should have been on the front of the locomotive and at the rear of the final car. Air brakes on trains are powered by a compressed air reservoir aboard each car. The engine supplies air pressure that is supposed to flow through the airbrake system along the entire length of the train. When this pressure is reduced by the engineer, valves on each car cause air pressure from the car's own reservoir to flow into the car's brake cylinder which applies brake shoes against the wheels and slows down the train. If the cars separate or the air pressure is "dumped" by the engineer in an emergency, the pressure immediately drops to zero and all cars in the train will brake to an emergency stop as a fail safe. Closing an angle cock at any point along the system disables this fail-safe and prevents the reduction in air pressure from being able to apply any brakes behind the closed angle cock. A routine inspection during the train's stop in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, inspectors later said, found the angle cock in the correct, open position. But an after-accident investigation by the ICC revealed that the handle of the angle cock at the rear of the third coach was not in the correct position, as a design flaw on New Haven coach #8665 allowed the handle of the angle cock valve to come into contact with the coupler, causing the valve to close. This meant that the engine could only activate the braking power of the first three coaches. The ''Federal'' departed New York City at 4:38 A.M. It made its regularly scheduled stops at
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
;
Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...
; and
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
. No braking trouble was reported at these stops. It departed Baltimore at 7:50 A.M. Baltimore was the train's last stop before arriving at Union Station, its
final destination ''Final Destination'' is an American horror franchise that includes five films, two comic books, and nine novels. It is based on an unproduced spec script by Jeffrey Reddick, originally written for ''The X-Files'' television series, and was d ...
. After leaving Baltimore, the train accelerated to , its normal speed. As the train neared
Landover, Maryland Landover is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 25,998. Landover is contained between Sheriff Road and Central Avenue to the so ...
, engineer Henry W. Brower tried to slow the train for its approach into the stub-ended tracks of Washington but the train slowed to just . Brower activated the emergency brakes, but the train only slowed to . Brower put the engine into reverse, but the electric engine began malfunctioning due to the stress placed on it. Sparks began flying from the wheels of the engine and first three coaches as they alone tried to slow the train. The ''Federal'' now began descending a long section of track on a relatively steep 0.73 percent grade. This caused the train to accelerate. Brower began sounding a distress signal on the engine's air horn. In the train yard at Union Station, tower operator John Feeney in K Tower set the switches to route the ''Federal'' onto Track 16. When the train raced past him at high speed, he telephoned the stationmaster's office. Clerk Ray Klopp picked up the phone. Feeney shouted, "Runaway on Track 16!" Klopp looked up to see the train racing directly toward his office. He shouted, "Run for your lives!" Then he and the other clerks ran out of the office as fast as they could. (They had just 20 seconds to get out of harm's way.) Aboard the train, conductor Thomas J. Murphy ran through the train from end to end, shouting at the passengers to get down as low as they could on the floor or on their seats.


The wreck

Passengers aboard the train knew something was wrong. The train would normally be moving very slowly as it passed beneath
Florida Avenue Florida Avenue is a major street in Washington, D.C. It was originally named Boundary Street, because it formed the northern boundary of the Federal City under the 1791 L'Enfant Plan. With the growth of the city beyond its original borders, Bound ...
. But this time it rushed past the bridge. The ''Federal'' was still moving at about when it was from the terminal. It had slowed to just when it struck the
bumper Bumper or Bumpers may refer to: People * Betty Bumpers (1925-2018), American activist, First Lady of Arkansas, wife of Dale Bumpers * Dale Bumpers (1925–2016), American politician, governor of Arkansas and senator * Bumper Robinson (born 197 ...
(the steel barrier at the end of the track). The train crashed through the buffer stop, then through the stationmaster's office, and then demolished a newsstand.Cooper, p. 61. The locomotive began skidding to its right. It also destroyed a steel pillar in the concourse, and tore through the concourse's concrete floor (which was higher than the tracks outside). The floor, not designed to hold the weight of a train, gave way beneath the Abendschein, p. 5. locomotive, and the rear of the engine plunged into the baggage and mail rooms in the basement below. Two coaches came loose from the engine and the rest of the train. One of them slid onto the concourse to the right of the engine, coming to rest almost abreast of it. The other nosed downward behind the engine into the gigantic hole in the concourse floor. Six more coach cars jumped the tracks behind the train. The engine was just inches from smashing into the crowded waiting room beyond the concourse. A ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine photo showed the nose of the engine just pushing open the doors to the waiting room. Amazingly, no one died during the accident. Only 43 people were injured, six seriously enough to require overnight hospitalization. Most of the workers in the basement had just departed for their coffee break, which spared their lives. Four Union Station workers were briefly trapped in the wreckage, but quickly extricated. The engineer had no injuries, and the fireman received only scratches. Both men climbed out of the engine under their own power. The stationmaster's clock, which was found in the wreckage, showed the time frozen at 8:38 A.M.


Aftermath

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
was able to broadcast live from Union Station just 67 minutes after the wreck occurred. This was, for the time, one of the fastest live nationwide broadcasts ever made. Despite the extensive damage to Union Station, train service to and from D.C. was delayed but not canceled. The railroad called in a local contractor, Steiner Construction Co. of Baltimore to assess the damage and make temporary repairs. As the incident occurred just five days before the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as the 34th
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, it was decided to make temporary repairs to accommodate the expected crowds. Working round the clock, the derailed cars were removed, the engine lowered into the basement, and Steiner Construction erected a temporary wooden floor over the hole in the concourse and covered it with quick-drying asphalt in just two days. The workers also built a temporary station master's office and newsstand in time for the crowds coming in to DC. PRR #4876 was later cut up on site, with the pieces hauled up the baggage ramp into gondola cars to be shipped back to the Pennsylvania Railroad's main shop complex in
Altoona, Pennsylvania Altoona is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the Altoona Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The population was 43,963 at the time of the 2020 Census, making it the eighteenth most populous city in Pennsylvania. ...
. After new frames were ordered and a replacement superstructure fabricated, any components that were able to be reused went towards what was essentially a new 4876 that remained in service for another 30 years. Having been retired in 1983, 4876 is currently in storage at the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Balt ...
in Baltimore with no current plans for restoration. The wreck of the ''Federal'' later inspired a similar scene in the 1976 motion picture '' Silver Streak''.


References


Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck Railway accidents and incidents in Washington, D.C. 1953 in Washington, D.C. Railway accidents in 1953 Accidents and incidents involving Pennsylvania Railroad Runaway train disasters January 1953 events in the United States